[QuadList] Super Stars etc

Fri Feb 5 23:48:36 CST 2010

George...

Don (The Gorilla) Adamson, (K4FBP, Free Beer and  Pizza)...  Definitely 
always on his best when he could shoot one across the  bow!!  

Don left TVJ and went to work with the Hero Teleproductions  and 
teleport in Hialeah.  Hero was later  bought out by GlobeCast.

I wasn't at that particular Super Stars shoot...

BTW, one year, the tape bus was hit by a huge wave as it was  being
barged from the port of Palm Beach to Nassau!!  The  windows were
both blown out!!  What a mess!!

Later...

73,

Don Murray, W4WJ
Fredericksburg,  Texas

Retired from 40 years in Miami TV
35+ years at NBC O&O  WTVJ  

In a message dated 2/4/2010 12:54:52 P.M. Central Standard  Time, 
georgenann at aol.com writes:

Guys,

RE: ACR blowers: CBS always had 3 or 4 spare blowers on  hand, they were 
rarely needed, also the machine shop rebuilt them on a couple  occasions. 
(Geniuses)

When all 6 ACR's went into the dumpster, I gave a couple  blowers to one of 
the guys for his organ. (The one that makes music)! One  of the guys in my 
shop grabbed the spare blower motor, for his lathe.   One evening he came in 
with a suitcase in which he brought it home on the  LIRR.

I'm glad I retired before the blowers in the Archive AVR-1's  die.  I tried 
to set the position of the pulley on one of them, but found  someone had 
put too much "Locktite" on the setscrews in the pulley.  I  was able to loosen 
it by heating it with a small blowtorch, but it is now  frozen again and 
the setscrews are somewhat "Reamed out". Not to worry, the  guys in the 
machine have bailed maint. out of worse situations.

My earlier comment about blanking widths was not a joke, it  was serious 
business. Back when the FCC had nothing better to do than complain  about 
blanking widths (Was it 10.7us??) one of the managers who had heard some  of the 
"Buzzwords" about it had a meeting with me in which she asked me if the  
blanking was OK on all of the ACR's.  I explained to her that the tape  
tensioning system on all of the ACR's was very good, perfectly servo  controlled 
so that if the widths were too short it would put a little extra  tension on 
the tape to make them a bit wider or if they were too wide - less  tension.  
She expressed great joy and thanked me very much for my  attention to this 
matter.

Oh yes! Some time later after CBS had put in it's tape  distribution 
facility, (Lots of dubbing machines, NTSC, PAL conversions) which  is supposed to 
be making lots of money,  I told her that we needed Time  Code converters 
for the PAL Digibets's, because "Over there in Europe, where  they use PAL, (I 
was pointing my finger twords New Jersey) they use "Zulu  Time" which is 
different than "American Time", and it must be converted to  "Zulu Time" or 
they can't use it there. She went to one of the guys in  Engineering and he 
told her that CBS ordered the Digibetas with the Pal Time  Code converter 
boards installed. Again she was quite pleased.

Years ago I had the occasion to do a couple of "Super Stars"  shoots (ABC) 
with the crew from WTVJ who did the taping, production, etc. I  went with a 
rented VPR-2 for maint. This was the first time a 1" tape  machine was being 
used on the show. WTVJ's tape Guru was one of the best in  the business 
named Don, (K4FBP) who is about my best friend.  He is also  (almost) as good a 
joker as am I.  After we got everything set up, there  was sort of a 
production meeting in the tape truck.  Don was standing off  to one corner and 
spoke rather loudly to the director and told him "You Had  Better Watch Those 
Wide Shots". The director did a double take and asked him  "Why"? Don told 
him that we have a 1" machine in the truck and it can only  handle the narrow 
angle shots. For a brief moment the director stood frozen,  as he hadn't 
expected this curve ball.  Then he caught on and the whole  truck broke up.

There were also a bunch of BBC guys there and that was the  first time I 
tried the Time Code conversion gag, (On them) but they were  a sharp bunch and 
it didn't phase them at all, they saw the humer, I think,  but they have a 
very dry sense of humer to begin with.

I'm sure I will burn in Hell for some of these gags, if they  have internet 
there, I will let you know what it is like. I am used to this  Global 
Warming so it may not be so bad. HI

DE,

George Keller

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